


before the world was big

by mediest



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 08:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediest/pseuds/mediest
Summary: Stressed about making friends? Apple and carrot muffins, p. 4Stressed about killing the loved one of a friend you just made? Almond cake with strawberries and rhubarb, p. 10Again? Wow. 5-ingredient lemon bars, p. 17-Adventures of Annette the Stress Baker!
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 59
Kudos: 709





	before the world was big

**Stressed about making friends? Apple and carrot muffins, p. 4**

“It’s not a _bribe_,” Annette says.

“Of course it’s not,” Mercedes says, along with, “Annie, careful,” as she rescues the wooden spoon before it escapes the bowl in Annette’s arms.

“Oh gosh,” Annette says, spinning back towards Mercedes to thank her, which sends her elbow into an empty pot that clatters to the ground. 

On kitchen duty today is Dedue, who says, “Annette,” in a reserved voice that, Annette’s learning, can also communicate deep turmoil. “Would you allow me to assist you?”

“That’d be lovely,” Mercedes says. “We can all be partners-in-crime together.”

“It’s not a bribe!” Annette says. “Does anyone smell smoke?”

The muffins turn out decidedly okay. They really aren’t meant to be a bribe. Annette just wants to be welcoming.

She brings them in a basket to their first class with the new professor. This is when they all learn that the professor can put food away like nobody else. She eats like a voracious newborn cub; it’s totally engrossing to watch. Mercedes says, “oh,” very delicately. His Highness looks like he’s fallen in love. 

Today’s lecture topic is battlefield awareness. Annette takes notes and nibbles on her own muffin, evaluating. She definitely burnt the bottoms. And maybe overmixed the batter—the texture isn’t as fluffy as it should be. She gives the basket a disappointed look and tells herself it’s fine. A single batch of mediocre muffins won’t make or break her. It’s not like she just fed them to her entire class and their brand new professor, not to mention the _crown prince_.

When the professor suggests a break halfway through, Felix comes up to Annette’s desk and asks neutrally, “Can I have a muffin.”

“I thought you didn’t like sweets,” Annette says suspiciously.

“I don’t,” Felix says. “Can I have one or not?”

“No, you were right not to take one,” Annette says. “They’re not very good.”

“That’s fine,” Felix says. 

“Oookay,” Annette says, and pushes the basket forward.

Felix selects a muffin and says, “Thanks,” and goes to sit back down. Annette checks on him as lecture progresses, and he really does eat it, piece by piece. The whole thing disappears, even the burnt bits. She spends the next five minutes grinning down at her notes on scouting and reconnaissance tactics. 

**Stressed about killing the loved one of a friend you just made? Almond cake with strawberries and rhubarb, p. 10**

Annette plops right down next to Ashe in the pew and rests her large encyclopedia volume carefully in her lap.

“Hi,” Ashe says, surprised.

“Hi,” Annette says. “Is it alright if I join you?”

“Be my guest,” Ashe says, still off-balance. 

Annette settle into her seat and gives Ashe some time to adjust to her presence, before noting, “I didn’t see you at dinner yesterday.”

“I haven’t had much of an appetite lately,” Ashe says. 

He says it apologetically, as if it’s just that the food isn’t to his liking, and not that they murdered his adoptive father three days ago. Annette forces herself to use the word murder. It’s important to her, to know what they did.

“I just came to tell you that I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. If you’d ever like to talk, though, I’d be glad to listen. My father—well, anyway. Sometimes we don’t just feel one clear way about our fathers.”

Ashe’s expression collapses for a brief moment, before it remakes itself. “Thanks, Annette,” he says, voice unsteady.

“And in case you did feel a little bit hungry after all, I thought I should bring you something to eat.”

She glances around to make sure no one is paying them any attention. Then she opens her encyclopedia. The inside of the once-heavy book is hollowed out. In the secret compartment sits two small silver forks with floral detailing along the stems, and a thick slice of almond cake laid on a napkin, only slightly flattened through the course of traveling from the kitchen to the cathedral. 

Ashe’s red-rimmed eyes go wide. He also looks, for the first time in awhile, like he’s about to laugh.

“We’re not allowed to have food in here,” he whispers to her.

“So don’t get caught,” Annette whispers back, discreetly passing him one of the forks.

Ashe is excellent at being stealthy. Annette hardly sees him fork off a corner of the cake and sneak it into his mouth.

“Did you make this?” he asks. “It’s pretty good.”

“My mother’s recipe,” Annette says. She takes the second fork for herself.

They eat their way through over half of the cake, heads bowed and faces hidden from any nearby priests. It feels like an utterly stupid thing to be doing, but maybe that’s where the satisfaction comes from. It’s a relief to do something stupid. Something that isn’t life or death. Annette looks up again, to check if anyone has caught on.

And suddenly there’s Felix, emerging from the east corridor.

Felix never comes to the cathedral of his own free will. It must be his turn this week to tend to the statues. They spot each other at roughly the same time. Annette has just taken a huge bite. Her cheeks are round and full of cake. Judging by Ashe’s frozen meerkat impression next to her, he’s in a similar state.

Felix stops in his tracks and stares for ten whole seconds. Annette swallows. Recognition flashes across Felix’s face, followed by disbelief.

Ashe’s shoulders start shaking. Annette wills herself not to lose her composure. She’s not at all successful, letting out a short, aborted giggle that instantly draws the suspicion of their choir director.

“Oh shit,” she squeaks, which makes Ashe shake even harder.

Felix drags a hand down his face as if he personally invented martyrdom. Then he walks over at an almost-jog and intercepts the choir director just in time, reaching Ashe and Annette first. 

“There you are,” Felix says, very loud, very flat. He is, to Annette’s delight, a truly horrible actor. “The professor needs us. There’s an emergency. Let’s go.”

He pulls them both up onto their feet and shoves them bodily outside through the cathedral doors, ignoring every single other person who looks at or tries to speak to or even breathes near them, steering them roughly forward all the way across the bridge. 

“Thanks, Felix,” Ashe says sheepishly as they’re manhandled.

“Thanks, Felix,” Annette says brightly. Without slowing their pace, she opens up her encyclopedia again and lifts the final piece of smushed cake on her fork. 

Felix looks completely unimpressed, but he eats it anyway. 

**Again? Wow. 5-ingredient lemon bars, p. 17**

The week after they murder Miklan, Sylvain acts as if it never happened. Annette sees him everyday out in the courtyard, lying in the grass, warm sunlight bathing his hair, reading. He looks fine. But how could he be? Annette doesn’t pretend to understand who Sylvain is, but it’s a basic fact of humanity that to watch unimaginable darkness mutate the image of someone who you must have loved, even if only for a false, trusting moment, long ago—how could anyone be fine?

Mercedes finds Annette squeezing the juice out of the fifth lemon in a row and tells her, “He has to be allowed to react in his own way.”

“What are you talking about?” Annette says, using her forearm to brush the hair away from her eyes. “These are for me.”

She’s not fooling anyone, least of all Mercedes. Mercedes glances at the recipe book. Bookmarking the page is a slip of parchment where Annette has handwritten, _for Sylvain._

“Ah,” says Mercedes. “You’ve changed your name.”

Annette makes a face at her. “Will you just help me, please?”

As much as Mercedes says she hates exercise, she’s really good at creaming butter and sugar. It typically takes her about ten minutes, compared to Annette’s fifteen, and her hair stays immaculate. “Do you really think he wouldn’t appreciate this? Everyone likes lemon bars,” Annette says, both elbows on the tabletop, chin cradled in her palms as she watches the magic happen. Mercedes’ hidden arm muscles must be amazing. 

“Who?” Mercedes says serenely. 

“You know!” Annette says. “C’mon, Mercie, I’m serious. I want to do something useful.”

Mercedes adjusts her grip on the bowl, absently shaking out her wrist. “Annie,” she says, “sometimes you can’t force someone to feel okay.”

Annette straightens back up. “That’s not what I’m doing,” she says.

Mercedes’ expression is gentle. “I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. I know your heart’s in the right place.”

Annette doesn’t respond yet. She doesn’t like how defensive or hurt she feels, the knot of disorganized emotions suddenly pulling tight in her chest. 

“What happened was really awful, wasn’t it?” Mercedes says, like she’s thinking aloud. “To see so much suffering and violence is hard to process. I’d understand, if it takes Sylvain some time.”

It’d be easier to process, Annette thinks, almost angrily, if he would just open up and say something. If he would stop acting like she didn’t even exist, stop acting like he didn’t know who she was, nothing had happened, he could walk through these same halls and see her and feel nothing towards her, feel no desire to speak with her or be honest with her. If—if he would instead, for once, just act like her father.

“You too, Annie,” Mercedes concludes. “It’s understandable, if you’re not feeling okay.”

She returns the bowl to Annette. The mixture has been beaten to a light and fluffy and perfect consistency.

“Ugh,” Annette says, throat feeling lumpy. “You’re always so much better at this than I am.”

In the end, Annette leaves the lemon bars in the dining hall with a new note next to the tray. _Treats for everyone!_ They’re gone by the end of dinner service. Annette catches Lysithea squirreling one away for later, which makes her feel lighter inside. 

At dawn, she places a small basket outside Sylvain’s door. Inside, she’s arranged two books about military tactics on His Highness’s recommendation, and her own collection of unproduced plays by modern Faerghus playwrights. She places long feathers inside to bookmark the ones she thinks Sylvain could enjoy the most, all tragic comedies. One about two rivalrous scam artist siblings: how to tell the actor from the act. One about a group of drunken and deluded tavern regulars: illusion as the antidote to despair. 

Sylvain skips morning lecture. Annette sees him later in the courtyard, reading again. He’s lounging with his back against a leafy tree, one long leg bent at the knee, the other stretched out casually. The late afternoon sun makes his skin shine golden. He’s very handsome, Annette thinks. He wears grief well—comfortably, invisibly. But there’s a feather like a smoke signal tucked behind his ear, white against fiery red hair. 

**Stressed about school? Savory cheddar and green onion biscuits, p. 25**

Training exercises take on a different tone after Captain Jeralt dies. They all want to give the professor time to mourn. She does for a day, wordlessly walking the monastery grounds. Then she returns to them with a deep, quiet urgency. 

Weapons practice intensifies. The number of mock battles doubles. It’s clear what she’s doing. If she has her way, she’ll never lose a single other person.

At least, not to combat. Burnout is a different story. Annette supposes she should be thankful that by the end of each day she’s so tired she can fall asleep within seconds. Otherwise she’d be up all night worrying. She gets this sense, late in the evening when moonlight glints off the cold stone floors, that they’re all living atop a fault line. Whatever forces are lying dormant beneath them are eventually going to collide with powerful inevitability.

Until then, the name of the game is “paired sparring drills until everyone, even Felix, wants to expire”. Felix trudges back to the sidelines and drops to the ground next to Annette with a huff. He’s done fairly well so far: got trounced by the professor, but pulled ahead against Ingrid. Annette herself is smarting from her earlier round with Ashe. Extra sustenance is needed. From her pack she produces a biscuit wrapped in a square of fabric, still somewhat warm. 

“Do you want some?” she offers to Felix. “It’s not sweet, I promise.”

Felix reaches over and tears off a small piece. His expression doesn’t really change when he eats, but he does say, “It’s good.”

“I’m glad,” Annette says.

His Highness and Dedue are next. They approach the professor and draw their cards. His Highness reads his, then slides into a strong initial stance. Low guard, Full Iron Door, Annette is able to identify, trying to pay close attention. The other card must say long range, because Dedue falls back a couple yards before they begin. 

Felix is watching the spar too, with an uneasy alertness, the way he watches anything where His Highness is involved. He doesn’t look at Annette when he asks, “Are you alright?”

He says it like a person trying to speak a foreign language. 

“Of course,” Annette says. 

“You don’t usually sit by yourself.”

“I had a fight with Mercedes,” who’s sitting primly on the other side of the training grounds.

“Right,” is all Felix says. He really is bad at this.

It isn’t Annette’s intention to keep unloading, but once she starts, it’s hard to stop. “We ran into some trouble at the market. I think I scared her, but I was only trying to protect her. Was that awful of me? So much has already happened. Who knows what we’ll have to go up against next?” 

“Nothing good,” Felix says, which is so profoundly anti-comforting that Annette almost wants to laugh. Instead she picks at her biscuit. This batch came out too dry.

In a flurry of movement, His Highness knocks Dedue to the ground. Felix looks on. He’s waiting too, Annette realizes. He’s waiting for something inescapable.

“The future is always going to come,” he tells her.

“I know that,” Annette says tightly. “What do you think I’ve been doing, wasting my time? I’m trying to get ready.”

She doesn’t mean to sound so combative; she’s just underfed and exhausted and, if she’s honest, afraid. She almost apologizes, but decides against it. Felix is combative constantly. 

Felix goes silent. He takes his hair down. Puts it back up more neatly. She wonders if it’s a nervous tick. Dedue eventually yields. When the bout of sparring ends, Felix turns towards her for the first time. His face is—whatever it is, it makes Annette’s heart go a little faster.

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Felix says. “You’re strong. You’ll be ready. I’ve never gone easy on you.”

Annette isn’t sure what to say to that. A hush falls over the anxious background noise in her brain. People have believed in her before. But to have the belief of someone like Felix, who’s the most uncompromising person Annette knows—it feels as though she’s been shown a glimpse of a rare and precious metal.

“You never go easy on anyone,” she finally points out. 

“Still,” Felix says, and for a moment they just look at each other.

“Annette,” the professor calls. “You’re up against Sylvain.”

Sylvain, who’s picking out a training lance, glances over at Annette and winks. 

“Go on,” Felix scoffs. “Make him sorry.”

Annette climbs to her feet.

**Stressed about the lives and safety of your friends and family? Olive and rosemary scones, p. 31**

The future comes for them, just as Felix promised. The professor falls. Their defensive line breaks against Edelgard’s unflinching preparation. His Highness disappears, consumed by the chaos and violence, Dedue not far behind. Annette, drained of all her magic, finds herself wielding an axe, dripping blood. She can’t remember where she picked it up from. Felix emerges like an angel of death out of the dragonfire and crumbling masonry in order to put Annette on a horse. He tells her, as gravely as she’s ever heard, “Ride home, Annette.” 

So she rides home, back to her uncle and mother. Helping Baron Dominic with bookkeeping feels like diligently sweeping the floors while the entire house is in flames. She writes to Mercedes every chance she gets:

_Could I come visit you in the capital? It’d make me feel a lot better to be able to see for myself that you’re well. Love and miss you terribly, Annette_

Mercedes writes back,

_I miss you and think of you every day, but I’d be heartbroken if something happened to you while you visited. Please stay out of Fhirdiad, Annie. It’s not safe here. Remember those rosemary scones that you liked so much? I’ve copied the recipe below. I hope it can bring you some small happiness this winter. All my love, Mercedes_

That winter, Annette depletes House Dominic’s entire supply of rosemary. As if she didn’t already have a poor reputation among the kitchen staff. 

She feels sick with uselessness. News travels of His Highness’s execution. The flags flying in Fhirdiad change colors. She watches her own uncle’s allegiance shift by degrees, day after day. The only thing that makes her feel of any value to anyone is assisting with recovery efforts in the war-torn Faerghus countryside. During nights, she practices spells over and over until her arms are windburnt. After word arrives of her father’s presence in Fraldarius territory, her mother finds her in the stables on five separate occasions, preparing a horse, and has to convince her not to leave. “Please, Annette,” she begs wearily the fifth time. Annette has no choice but to follow her back inside. There must be something wrong with her, she thinks as she wipes her eyes furiously, to be so desperate to run off to war. There must be something wrong with her, if war isn’t enough to guide her father’s attention home. 

In the spring, she writes to Mercedes again so she won’t worry. 

_I’ve made some edits to the recipe. You’ll never guess the secret new ingredient. The next time we see each other, I’ll bake a batch for you. Until then, let’s both stay strong. Love always, Annie_

Updates from Ashe stop coming after House Rowe becomes vassal to the Empire. Sylvain and Ingrid write infrequently. Annette learns about them in other ways, through reports of bloodshed up north as Houses Gautier and Fraldarius resist Imperial rule. The citizenry of Galatea is being starved out.

Felix writes even less. Finally fed up, Annette’s last message reads,

_I assume a giant wolf monster has eaten all my previous letters on their way to you, and that’s why I haven’t received a reply. Assuming the giant wolf monster eats this letter as well, I’ll just choose to believe that you are healthy and safe. Yours, Annette (who you have still not written back)_

A month later, the first piece of correspondence with a Fraldarius seal arrives.

_Annette,_

_Sorry. Thank you for the letters. I reread them often. Keep writing to me so I know you’re okay._

Then there are five different sign-offs that have been thoroughly scratched out in black ink so as to be unreadable.

It ends, simply: _Felix_

Annette folds the letter back up and places it under her pillow. On days when the war is infinite and suffocating, she holds the paper up to the light and tries to make out the hidden words. 

**Stressed about killing some of those friends you made a long time ago? Boozy chocolate pecan pie, p. 36**

Before the sun even sets, Annette knows she won’t be sleeping tonight. Earlier she was afraid that she’d cry during the march back from Gronder Field, and everyone else would see her, and be sorry, and tell her it’d be okay, and she couldn’t stand the thought of it. Luckily she doesn’t feel like crying at all. She rides alongside the professor, listening to the repetitive slap of hooves against the dirt, feeling the numbness like a poison in her chest. When they arrive back at Garreg Mach, it’s His Highness who notices her and helps her dismount her horse. His lance, strapped to the back of his shoulder, glows luminous and menacing. Blood has dried on His Highness’s face and chest. But death has loosened its grip on him. His hands are gentle as they guide Annette down.

It isn’t until Annette returns to her room and closes the door that the day finally overwhelms her, and then she cries her eyes out, sobs to herself for half an hour until her throat feels shredded and raw.

When she’s done, she wipes her face clean on a handkerchief and marches to the kitchen. 

Ingredients are hard to come by nowadays; she doesn’t want to be frivolous. But there’s enough in the pantry for a crust, and plenty of booze lying around, so Annette gets to work making Fódlan’s smallest, saddest pie.

She’s not a child. This will happen again, tomorrow, and the next day. Each face they encounter on the battlefield is never without its own history or life. Isn’t it selfish, to dwell so much on only the faces she knew? Bernadetta’d screamed horribly when Crusher opened her up from stomach to collarbone. By then she’d already shot down nearly two dozen Kingdom soldiers. His Highness had one of her arrows protruding from his left thigh as if he didn’t even feel it. What else was Annette supposed to do?

She understands what it means to be at war. She just wants to create something good, while the world will still allow it from her. 

One thing has remained constant across the last five years: Ingrid could be dead and buried and still be roused to life by the smell of food. The pie has been in the oven for ten minutes when Ingrid peers inside the kitchen.

“Annette?” she says.

Annette smiles waterily at her. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I couldn’t sleep,” Ingrid says, which is clear: her posture bleeds exhaustion, but she hasn’t even changed into her nightclothes. “You too, I’m guessing?”

Annette nods. “Would you like a slice of pie? It’ll be an hour before it’s ready, but it sounds like you’re staying up anyway.”

“That’d be nice.” Ingrid starts rolling up her sleeves. “Here, since you did the baking, let me at least help you with the clean up.”

Any other day, Annette would object, but she recognizes better than anyone the value of keeping your hands busy, your mind occupied. The monastery is eerily silent at this hour, but Ingrid is pleasant company. She doesn’t make Annette feel like she needs to say anything, which is why Annette eventually does speak up. “Can I ask you a question?” 

Elbow deep in dirty dishwater, Ingrid says, “Go for it.”

“After the war, will you still want to join the knighthood?”

“I’ll continue serving His Highness as long as he’ll have me,” Ingrid says. She says it with the conviction of someone who made her decision when she was very young. “What about you? Have you thought about what you’d like to do?”

Of course Annette has. She used to picture dozens of future lives, unable to pick just one, each path its own narrative she could tell about herself. She liked to imagine all the different ways she could grow. 

“For awhile I thought about becoming a professor too,” she says, taking a seat on the short table bench. “I could teach sorcery and work with students.”

Ingrid glances back over her shoulder. “That’s perfect for you, Annette.”

It’s a very kind thing for her to say. Annette looks down into her lap as she confesses, “I keep thinking about what sort of person I’ll be, when all of this is over. I don’t know if I’ll still be the sort of person who can do something like that.”

Ingrid turns the water off. It’s quieter now than it was before. 

“That’s true,” she says. “If we want to survive, it’s impossible for us to stay the same as we were before.”

She dries her hands on a towel, then looks at Annette with those assessing green eyes. “But I think whoever you become by the end will still be a person deserving of some grace.”

“Thanks, Ingrid,” Annette says, in a wobbly voice, and laughs at herself. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so morose. I really hate acting this way.” 

Ingrid sits down beside her. “Once I was so morose I didn’t leave my room for nearly a month.”

“You? No way.”

The pie must be smelling good, because another ten minutes later, Ashe peeks his head in too. “Am I interrupting?”

“No, come in, sit down,” Annette says, gesturing to the second bench across the table. “Ingrid and I are being morose together.”

“Great,” Ashe says, “I’m feeling pretty morose myself.”

They chat about nothing in particular. Old stories from their academy days. Ashe tells them about the time he and Caspar accidentally arrested and then raised a stray cat together. This jogs Annette’s own memory—all of the times she bailed Caspar out of fights with bigger men and he bailed her out of fights with pots and pans and kitchen fires. She liked him a lot, back in school. Maybe he’s grown taller and stronger now, the way he always wanted. Sooner or later they’ll see Caspar again on the battlefield and she’ll find out. 

More time goes by, and Mercedes shows up with a box of tea leaves and a delicate ceramic pot. She pours them each a cup of tea and shares some delicious five-year-late gossip about catching Caspar leaving Hilda’s room. “_Seriously?_” says Ingrid, scandalized, while Annette covers her face with both hands, giggling.

Felix arrives just as the pie’s cooling off. Sweaty, dirty, obviously coming from the training grounds, but Sylvain’s with him too. Annette’s relieved to see proof that Felix hasn’t spent the night alone so far. 

“Nobody told us there was a party,” Sylvain says, pulling up a spare wooden chair, sitting backwards. There’s a fresh cut above his eyebrow. Felix must’ve gotten him good. Felix himself is bloody and bruised, radiating heat from physical exertion, but he doesn’t look like he’s been crying. Everyone reacts in their own way, Annette reminds herself. The math is unthinkably cruel: a spark of clarity in Dimitri’s eye, equal to a father’s life. Annette doesn’t ever want to ask Felix if it’s a trade he would have ceded willingly.

Instead she scoots towards Ingrid and pats the empty space next to her. “Sit here, Felix.”

Felix sits without any verbal acknowledgement. Under the table, Annette places a hand tentatively on his knee, because she’d like to do at least one comforting thing that Felix might accept. He doesn’t relax, but he doesn’t go rigid either.

“Annie made a pie,” Mercedes is saying. “Shall we try it?”

“Yes,” Ingrid says, already standing. “Don’t get up, Annette, you’ve done enough. I’ll find a knife.”

“I’ll get plates,” Ashe says.

“How’s the tea situation looking?” Sylvain asks, and Mercedes hums, “For this number of people, we’ll need more hot water. But let me take care of your face for you first.”

The kitchen grows louder, bustling. Annette feels a small, fragile burst of warmth. They’re a few faces short. That fact rips through her irrevocably. But how can she not be grateful, too, for everyone who remains?

Felix is the only one who hasn’t moved. He’s studying Annette without directly looking at her. By now the feeling is familiar. 

“Are you tired?” he asks.

Annette nods, because Felix seems tired too.

Felix shifts closer expectantly, but it takes a moment for Annette to understand what he’s offering. Once she does, she leans gently into Felix’s side and places her cheek against his shoulder. He feels solid and nice. She keeps rubbing his knee slowly. After some time, probably without really meaning to, Felix leans back into her too, his loose hair falling against her face, until eventually one of them falls asleep first. 

**Stressed on the eve of battle? Summer peach galette, p. 49**

There are many reasons that Annette is happy for Dedue’s return. His cooking doesn’t even rank among the top ten. It is, however, listed at number eleven.

In two days they march for Enbarr. The professor ends the war council meeting early in the afternoon, takes one look at everyone’s solemn faces, and says, “Let’s take a break, I’m starving.”

It’s difficult at first, to coax Dimitri away from his duties and cast off Edelgard’s looming shadow. But once everyone is gathered in the dining hall, the atmosphere livens up. Mercedes lights every single candle within reach. The professor says something into Dimitri’s ear that makes a bashful smile flicker across his face. Ashe and Dedue blink in and out of the kitchen. Felix is missing, who-knows-where, but Sylvain and Ingrid provide enough manpower to butcher a pheasant (Sylvain, with competence) and clean and gut a fish (Ingrid, with aversion). Even her father has come, standing watchful to the side. When he accepts Annette’s offer of a cup of warm cider, he folds his hands over hers and holds them there fleetingly. He is never going to say exactly what she needs to hear, Annette knows. He is not that kind of man. But this amount of sentiment is not nothing. 

There’s plenty of work to be done. Dedue assigns her to make the soup stock, which Annette recognizes is a task with a deliberately wide margin of error. She doesn’t gripe, pleased enough to just stand beside him and enjoy the calming strength of his presence again.

“I can handle it,” she does say. “I’ve improved since the last time we cooked together, you know.”

Dedue says, “I can tell that you have,” and Annette has never known Dedue to lie. He even hands Annette a larger knife himself.

Felix reappears over an hour later, holding a mysterious bundle of cloth in his arms. He makes eye contact with Annette from across the dining hall, so Annette excuses herself from helping Ashe chop up herbs. She wipes her hands on her apron as she approaches Felix.

“You’re back!” she greets. “Right on time, I think the first course will be served soon. Where’d you run off to?”

Felix shrugs. “I overheard you talking the other day—”

“No, stop right there,” Annette threatens. The number of times Felix has overheard her “talking” about food continues to be mortifying.

“Anyway,” Felix says, then just gives up trying to explain himself any further and instead begins to unwrap the cloth.

When Felix unveils four large peaches, rosy yellow and mouth-watering, Annette actually gasps.

“Felix,” she doesn’t know why she’s whispering, “these must’ve cost a fortune!” 

Felix says uncomfortably, “Just tell me if they’re good or not. I don’t pick out fruit often.”

“They’re perfect,” Annette gushes. “I almost want to eat them just like this. Oh, let’s cut up half right now, and then I’ll bake the rest. I’ll make a galette. These are going to taste so good, Felix, you’re amazing.”

“You’re welcome,” Felix says, already looking like he wants to escape, but he’s dreaming if he thinks Annette won’t keep rewarding him with praise anyway. Fresh fruit of this quality in Faerghus is a rarity. During wartime, it’s a benediction.

Felix helps her slice two of the peaches into ten symmetrical pieces total. The precision of his knifework is both predictable and charming. As soon as Felix cuts into the first peach, the sweet aroma of its nectar fills the entire space, rising above even the smell of Dedue’s spicy meat dishes. The flesh is soft without having lost all of its firmness; its juices are cool and sticky. Annette feels herself getting absurdly emotional just looking at it.

“Let’s show everyone,” Annette tells Felix, pulling him along by the wrist.

Felix, against all expectations, says, “Fine.”

They spend the next few minutes delivering peach slices. “Felix got these for us!” Annette says, while Felix stands close behind her, so Annette can’t see his expression but she can feel the shift of his body language.

Like tolerance, when Sylvain remarks, “Felix, just tell us if you have a concussion, buddy,” while Ingrid says effusively, “I haven’t had a peach in _ages_.”

Or bemusement, when Mercedes claps her hands and says, “We _must_ make a galette,” and Annie responds, “That’s exactly what I said!”

Or receptiveness, when Ashe’s face lights up with wonder and Dedue’s face does his own version of the same, deep eyes softening, mouth quirking up. 

Or the very complicated way Felix reacts when Dimitri looks him in the eye and says genuinely, “Thank you, Felix.”

Soon there are only two slices left on the plate. Annette finally lets go of Felix so she can take one for herself. The anticipation is overwhelming, but she forces herself not to be hasty. As silly as it probably looks, she closes her eyes. The flavor of the peach is ripe and bursting. Its texture is silk in her mouth. The bright, syrupy richness hits her like some kind of lightning. All the tastebuds and nerve endings that’ve been sleeping dormant inside her suddenly awaken. It’s a miracle that Felix has brought this to her, in the midst of war and hunger and unending death. It’s a miracle that this exists.

When she opens her eyes again, Felix hasn’t moved. His hand, balancing the nearly empty plate, twitches visibly.

“Go ahead and have mine too,” he says, sounding tense.

“No,” Annette protests. “You went through so much trouble to buy these peaches, you should at least get a taste.”

“I never said it was trouble,” Felix says. “And I know what peaches taste like.”

“Then you know it’s not going to poison you just to try one.”

“I told you, I don’t want it.”

“Why are you being difficult about this?” Annette demands.

“_I’m_ the one being difficult?” Felix mutters to himself.

He looks away, off to the side. When he looks back at Annette, she makes a swift, impossible, surreal realization.

“I didn’t buy them for myself,” Felix says. “That’s all.”

_That’s all_. As if that could be true, with the way Felix is looking at her. A small part of Annette already feels conflicted—can she really be allowed to hoard one more beautiful thing? A larger part is busy noticing how good Felix smells. 

Feeling brave, Annette grabs the hand she was holding before. “Even so,” she says, “that doesn’t mean you can’t have any.” 

Her next realization is that Felix has no hands left now to eat the peach she keeps insisting he eat. Felix could solve this problem himself by setting down the plate, but the full scope of his attention has zoomed in on her.

“Annette,” he says. He sounds nervous. It’s the Felix version of nervousness, which means an unreadable tone and a body approaching total paralysis. Which means, in the end, it’s really up to Annette to make this happen. 

She lifts herself up to kiss Felix quickly on the cheek first. Then, slower, on the mouth. It’s enough to finally provoke Felix to action.

He’s astonishingly tender with her. It makes Annette’s whole heart ache. She can tell he’s coming into this blind and inexperienced, feeling his way through, his mouth moving carefully against hers. The kiss stays pretty innocent up until the moment Annette decides to slip Felix some tongue. Felix makes a stunned little noise. Then there’s the sound of the plate finally clattering onto a nearby table, and then there’s Felix’s hand on the small of her back, pressing her closer as he licks the taste of peaches from her willing mouth. Fast learner, Annette thinks giddily. 

She hears some sort of reaction buzzing around her. Someone whistles their approval.

Felix stiffens and pulls away from her, red-faced, ready to raise hell. Annette graciously saves Sylvain’s life and holds Felix in place. 

“Don’t,” she says, just as embarrassed, but also grinning uncontrollably. “Stay with me.”

Felix glances back at her. Kissing has sanded away his edges, leaving his face unprotected. He’s lost so much these past few years and only some of it has been returned to him. A king, at the cost of family; victory, at the cost of the person they each hoped they weren’t capable of being.

There’s no helping it, Annette knows. But there’s also a shock of happiness, to have found a desire that she can grant Felix for free. She loves the way that makes her feel, like someone who can still give and receive so much sweetness. 

Felix shoots Sylvain one last dirty look across the dining hall, then relents. The way his expression morphs as soon as he turns to Annette makes her flush with power and joy. She grins up at Felix until he smiles back. The Felix version of a smile, which is small, but changes the entirety of him.

“Will you help me and Mercie make a galette?” she asks.

“I don’t know what that is,” Felix says.

“I’ll teach you,” Annette says, and pulls Felix with her back towards the melody of conversation, and the comfort of warm food, and the glowing light of the candles.


End file.
